Norwich businessman giving 100 motorized wheelchairs

NORWICH — Phil Pavone has 100 motorized wheelchairs and scooters fixed and ready to be given away to disabled people in need at the eighth annual Gift of Mobility donation event this weekend.

As he has for the past seven years, the owner of AZ Pawn in Norwich will enlist about 20 volunteers to meet with the recipients and give them their chairs. This year's event is at 11 a.m. Sunday at the Holiday Inn in Norwich.

"It's a life-changer," Pavone said. "This is independence."

And it's an emotional time for the recipients, some of whom have lost both legs and are confined to their homes.

"Some of them haven't been out of their house for a year," Pavone, standing in the middle of a storage room full of the chairs, said Wednesday. "Now they can do things they couldn't do before."

Because the need for chairs is greater than what's available, Pavone asks those who would like one to write him a letter describing themselves.

"What their disabilities are, whether they're right or left-handed, how much they weigh," he said. "I try to match the chair to the person."

That process started three months ago. Each chair is now numbered and set aside for a specific recipient.

They all have fresh batteries, bought and installed by Pavone.

He starts to receive donated chairs in March.

"When we pick them up, they're not running," he said. "We take them and fix them all up."

Spare parts — tires, cushions, batteries, control sticks — are stacked against one wall of the storage area near Pavone's AZ Pawn Shop.

"If one is in really bad shape, we take the wheels off, put new ones on, put a seat on another," he said. "The biggest problem is batteries, when people let these sit without charging them up."

Purchased new, the chairs start at about $4,500 and can cost up to $30,000, he said.

The recipients are people that, Pavone said, have fallen through the cracks of the country's health care system and either can't afford the chairs or are denied money from health insurance companies to help pay for them. He's already given away 23 throughout the year, he said.

Sunday's event will bring the total donated to almost 500.

"There is not another program like this in the United States," he said. "There's places that refurbish them and sell them for a reduced price, but nobody gives it to them for free."

Anyone who has a spare chair can donate to AZ Pawn, Pavone said, by contacting the shop at (860) 889-4474.

"We'll start taking donations of chairs at the end of February," he said.

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